RESEARCH BRIEFS

Adolescents and Young Adults Back to Top

Health Outcomes: Marijuana Use During College: College students who use marijuana appear to be risking their health, particularly if they increase or continue heavy use in college.

Adolescent Drinking and Young Adult Violence: evidence from a longitudinal study of urban African-Americans suggests association between drinking alcohol during adolescence and increased risk for some forms of young adult violence. 

Marijuana Exposure, Initiation During College: parental monitoring and peer influences play a role in whether previously abstinent youth are exposed to marijuana during college and whether they actually use the drug.

Drugged Driving and College Students:  college students drive under the influence of drugs as much as they drive drunk.

Opioid Misuse Among Young Injection Drug Users:  in the young, injecting drugs, heroin may have been preceded by prescription opioid misuse.

Teen Marijuana Check-Up:  brief motivational interventions can attract and have a positive impact on adolescent marijuana users.

Adolescent Brain Development and Drugs: relatively new advances in understanding of adolescent brain development should be disseminated to parents and reflected in treatment/ prevention strategies.

Role of Dentists in Prescription Opioid Abuse: Dentists may have a role in preventing abuse of legitimately prescribed pain medication.

Supervised Alcohol Use: Study finds that adult supervised, adolescent alcohol use results in higher levels of harmful alcohol circumstances.

Prescription Analgesic Use in College Students: In one study, 42% of students used pain prescriptions in a way inconsistent with doctor’s instructions.

Screening for Alcohol Problems in Colleges: Less than one-half of colleges use a tool to screen for student alcohol problems.

Association of Childhood ADHD and Substance Use and Abuse/Dependence: In this meta-analytic review, researchers find more evidence that ADHD children are significantly more likely to develop substance use disorders.

Contingency Management for Adolescent Marijuana Use and Dependence: Integrating contingency management, abstinence-based approaches with other empirically-based interventions is an alternative, efficacious treatment model for adolescent marijuana use or dependence. 

More...